Movies on a Plane

Hey there,

I recently had the immense pleasure of taking a multiple-years-delayed international trip with Husband and our two children.  Between wrangling our kids and trying to get some sleep, our two flights gave me opportunities to (mostly?) watch some movies.  I say "mostly?" because I watched one without sound and the other two without sound but with subtitles, since baby-wrangling made having a headset plugged in would have readily delivered the losing combination of being both irritating and impractical.

This less-than-optimal viewing experience should probably majorly caveat the following reviews, so take them with whatever dose of salt you think they deserve.

Movie on a Plane #1: "Turning Red" (2022)

This was both a captionless rewatch and a movie I didn't finish for aforementioned baby wrangling reasons.  Given that I didn't think very highly of it the first time around (previously rating the movie a 2), I chose to watch it largely because it was a children's movie that wouldn't offend the prying eyes of my kids, it was a known quantity, and the animation is at least competent and visually interesting enough to provide a little diversion to pass the time on a long trip.  "Turning Red" nevertheless fails to exceed even that very low set of expectations.  I just don't think Disney is up to the task of skillfully constructing a movie about characters navigating early adolescence, and as a result this film is just kind of cringey and uncomfortable.  I don't mean to be overly conservative, but I just think there should be limits on little girls twerking in children's movies, even if they're temporarily transmogrified into a giant fluffy anthropomorphized red panda, and "Turning Red" somewhat mortifyingly exceeds those limits.

I continue to rate the movie a 2.

Movie on a Plane #2: "Bridget Jones's Diary" (2001)

I recall this movie being very well-regarded and enjoyed when it came out, and I must have seen it multiple times over the years because I remember a lot of it remarkably clearly.  It's nevertheless been quite some time since my last viewing, which might explain why its overt racism, fatphobia, and normalization of sexual harassment seemed especially egregious this soundless go round.  The anti-Asian racism, as well as other unappealing and problematic content, are front and center in the first five minutes of the movie, making them completely unmissable and placing a completely unnecessary bad taste in the viewer's mouth from the jump.  The fact that you never even meet the character the film's recurrent Japanophobia is targeting makes it all the more noxious and excessive--for some reason, this movie just needed to find an outlet for some random anti-Asian bullshit, and we're supposed to find it funny(??).  

I also can't overstate how much I *hate* that the main character repeatedly explicitly states her weight throughout the film.  It's a slap in the face to every woman watching every time Bridget reports her own (under-average at the time) weight.  Either we are tacitly encouraged to feel self-hating chagrin that we weigh as much as or more than her, or to feel perhaps a sense of unearned superiority or relief if we weigh less than her, but either way we are being subtly pitted against all other women and ourselves by this surprisingly mean-spirited movie.

And to boot, 2/3s of the main characters are aggressively small-minded, ignorant, shallow, self-absorbed people, and 1/3 of them is an awkward Colin Firth with an inexplicably bad picker.

I gave the movie a 1.

Movie on a Plane #3: "Serendipity" (2001)

I'd never seen this movie before, but chose it because a) why not watch another romcom in the hopes of cleansing my palate post-Bridget Jones and b) I like John Cusack.  And thankfully, it was fine!  For starters, Eugene Levy has a delightful silly supporting role.  Furthermore, I appreciate that the film didn't stick Kate Beckinsale's Sara with a boring manic pixie dreamgirl persona, but instead had her evolve into someone more discerning over the years between her first encounter with Cusack's Jon and their later, inevitable reconnection.  Jon also evolves during this period from being completely unconvinced of the reality of fate to upending his plans for marriage because he is so converted by his conviction that Sara is the fated "one" for him.  I like the ways in which both of the main characters adopt each other's view points over time to some extent, and that the film then playfully toys with them as they try to find each other again, flailingly yet ardently attempting to enforce their own wills over the will of fate.

That said, Sara and Jon both kind of suck in important ways.  They both are dating other people when they meet, yet spontaneously embark on a day-long date together after their chance meeting at a department store (where they are shopping for gifts for their significant others).  Sara is so obsessed with the concept of fate when she meets Jon that she creates a bunch of ridiculous tests to essentially force the universe to prove that they're destined to be together, which results in them unnecessarily losing touch for years.  She also later gets engaged to an insufferable and self-obsessed goober, which is a bit suspect.  Jon, though, is arguably much worse, as he spends the day before his wedding to a perfectly-fine-seeming woman rushing around New York City frantically trying to track Sara down.  The movie wants us to be so swept away in its contention that Jon and Sara are ~*~*~*DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER*~*~*~ that we look past their deep emotional infidelity to multiple partners, and I'm just not really here for that.  I think we deserve romantic comedies that don't necessitate majorly emotionally damaging innocent bystanders, even if one of those bystanders in an embarrassingly bad musician.

All that said, especially in the context of the very slim pickings on two very long flights, I gave the movie a 3.

In conclusion: hopefully managing to watch three movies even under these non-ideal circumstances means my movie-watching tempo is changing for the better.  May the fates be in my favor.

{Heart}